


Sound of Silence

by tirsynni



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-21
Updated: 2016-03-21
Packaged: 2018-05-28 03:25:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6313510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tirsynni/pseuds/tirsynni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Edward and Alphonse theorized that their souls were bound together, crossed when they tried to bring their mother back from the dead.</p>
<p>They were right.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sound of Silence

When Edward Elric was 10 years old, he committed the Taboo. That regret weighed around his neck like an anchor for years. No one asked him exactly what he regretted. Many who knew of the Incident thought they knew: his hubris in daring to play God. When the Incident came up, Edward spoke of Icarus and daring to fly.

Others who knew Edward’s heart knew better. They knew of the walls of steel and spikes which guarded him, of the broken mirrors deflecting questions and throwing everyone’s own sins back in their faces. They knew the other half of Icarus’s tale: if he had flown too low, the salt water would have destroyed the glue holding his wings together.

Bring up the hubris and don’t bring up the horror that was the creature, bloody and dying, in the middle of the floor. Don’t talk about the fear, not even in the dead of the night, not even with Alphonse, that they brought their mother back from peaceful death to that wheezing, gasping mass of flesh and bone, only for her to die again.

Bring up the hubris and don’t bring up dragging his little brother into pain and fear and death and watching him be dragged away by Truth, terrified eyes wide and hand reaching for Edward.

The Truth was blinding, cold and white. There, Edward and Alphonse theorized, was where their souls crossed. More than sin bound them then. If they were right, Edward believed, he paid some price every day for Alphonse’s body being lost in the Gate. Edward hoped for months that their theory was right, even if it cost him his height, if it meant he could pay some cost.

A theory, bound in blood and sin and love and pride, proven right when Father lashed out and Edward felt that bond break. Something shattered within him, raking through him as it swept away. He doubled over and grabbed his chest.

He heard Mei screaming but the sound was odd, muffled, like she was screaming from under water. Edward knew even as he turned what he would see, knew it in the shredded center of him.

The armor still stood, legs still whole, before Mei. Half of the torso was gone. The broken helmet rolled and bounced across the battlefield until it landed at a confused Colonel Mustang’s feet. Underneath where the helmet used to be was nothing. Just empty space.

Edward stared and Mei’s screaming grew more and more distant until there was only silence. There were more voices but they all faded until it was as silent as Resembool’s graveyard, as the white realm of the Truth.

Only silence and the empty place where Alphonse Elric used to be.        

The world seemed so slow as Edward turned back around, as if Alphonse had taken all of the energy of the world with him. There was Father, still fighting, looking like he had no idea what he had just done. Soldiers were firing soundless shots, and Father ignored them all.

Ants, he said once. Ants.

Edward never made the conscious decision to move. Flesh foot slammed into the ground like so much meat, followed by the automail foot: the dig in and the push off, each step taking him closer to the Father. The bullets stopped. Father turned to him. Golden eyes caught golden eyes, cold and hungry. Father raised his hands toward Edward. Slowly. Oh so slowly.

Edward clapped his hands and ducked under Father’s. He felt the reverberations through his left arm but didn’t feel the impact, didn’t hear the familiar noise. He reached for Father as Father reached for him, and his mouth moved. Edward didn’t hear his words but he knew them from forever ago.

_Give him back_.

With a touch, the world blazed white.

“Hello, Edward Elric.”

All white, too much white, and there was only one Gate, _only one Gate_. Beside Edward there was a black ball which could only be the Dwarf in the Flask. Edward shoved a metal finger in its direction. “You have your price. Now give me Alphonse back!”

The Truth sat before them, Edward’s flesh leg drawn up to its chest, its white leg stretched out. It tsked and shook its head. “Now, now, you know better than that. You can’t bring back the dead.”

Edward’s brilliant, rapid mind was blank. He shook his head, saw his hair slap his face out of the corner of his eye. “Nononono! I was quick! There was time!”

Edward’s flesh shoulder rose in a shrug. “Perhaps if Alphonse Elric had voluntarily rejoined his body. Not if the blood seal was destroyed.”

Edward didn’t feel himself fall to his knees. He felt his mouth open but didn’t hear his scream. He raised his head but there was only whitewhitewhite where Alphonse’s Gate should have been.

“—me back!” the Dwarf in the Flask was shouting. “There’s nothing to exchange!”

Staring into the white, Edward didn’t hear the Truth’s response. He fell forward, landing on his hands. The whiteness never changed.

Alphonse was gone.

His own thin, emaciated leg blocked his view. The toenails were long like claws. “Choose your exchange, Alchemist. This one is enough to get your limbs back.”

The silence had crept inside Edward, beyond cold, beyond numb. No grief, no loneliness, no anger: just an emptiness he had never known before.

Edward stared at the delicate ankle before him. Somewhere to the side, the Dwarf was still shouting.

Alphonse was gone.

Two pale human fingers touched Edward’s chin and raised Edward’s gaze to the Truth. Somewhere, within that blazing white, Edward thought he saw the flickering red and orange of a house burning. “Well, Alchemist?”

Edward closed his eyes and told him. Truth smiled. The Dwarf screamed.

When the flare of Edward’s alchemy faded, the others found him curled around Alphonse’s still, naked body. There was no sign of Father.

As his friends and Hohenheim hurried toward them, Edward held the body close and screamed. Everyone heard it but him.

All Edward heard was the sound of false wings falling, and then there was only silence.


End file.
